


The Past Repeats

by alexcyprin (Megatraven)



Series: Silver and Gold [18]
Category: Labyrinths of Astoria (Visual Novel)
Genre: Gen, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-16
Updated: 2020-06-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:27:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24744568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Megatraven/pseuds/alexcyprin
Summary: Ordered to stay at home and rest, MC hears of news regarding Alex that leaves her wondering why Alex didn’t let her protect them, too.
Relationships: Alex Cyprin/Main Character, Aphrodite & Main Character, Josh & Main Character
Series: Silver and Gold [18]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1572766
Kudos: 3





	The Past Repeats

**Author's Note:**

> Based on those lines from season 1 when MC is resting at home after being released from the infirmary that go, "Why can't we protect each other? If Alex ended up killed in the field-! My heart seizes in my chest at the thought, crushed by that simple possibility."

She’s half asleep when it happens.

Her body is bruised and scratched, her head still pounding, even days after Josh brings her home. Some days, between her crying and anger, it was hard to breathe or sleep or do much of anything.

Those are the days where she’s just on the brink of sleep, but still awake enough to know when Josh comes and leaves.

It’s one of those days, when her phone plays a tune she hasn’t heard in _years_ , a tune that she’d forgotten about until just then. It wakes her up a bit, and she wracks her brain for the last time she’d heard it-

She jolts upright, fear suddenly clawing at her heart.

It’s Aphrodite’s number.

And the last time it called her, she was fifteen, and she’d just gotten the worst news of her life.

Her fingers tremble, but she answers just in time and brings it up to her ear. Her heart is pounding painfully in her chest, and it’s all she can do to strain her ears for Aphrodite’s voice.

Only, the goddess doesn’t say anything at first. There’s some sound on the other line, but MC can’t make it out.

“Hello?” she asks, nervous. Everything about this feels wrong.

“Oh, MC,” the goddess says- and it breaks her heart. “It’s Alex.”

 _Alex_.

_It’s Alex._

Suddenly, she knows what she was hearing before she spoke- crying. Sobbing. The goddess’ grief, magnified to new heights when deep down, she knew- Aphrodite had never quite gotten over her lover’s death.

But, Alex couldn’t be dead. They're too stubborn for that, too strong, too _good_. They're smart and cautious and brave. They know what they were doing.

It’s thinking that, that really shatters her heart, scattering all of its pieces so that they spear the inside of her chest a million different ways, because-

Because her mother was the same.

And she wasn’t here anymore.

Finally, she dredges up a response, even though her head and heat and _soul_ ache in an unbearable way.

“Alex?”

Some small part of her hopes against everything that they’re alright, that Aphrodite might say anything other than what MC knows she’s about to say. 

“They’re gone.”

Aphrodite’s voice cracks on the word, but it’s MC’s _world_ that breaks on it.

Everything feels like it’s slowed down, submerged in water, but her mind is moving too fast, so fast that the edges of her vision start to grow dark and she has to force herself to take a breath before she passes out.

The goddess says something else, but it sounds like it’s coming from far away, now, and MC can’t understand it. She can’t respond, can’t wrap her head around it, around anything, can’t trust that something so clearly _wrong_ could be anything but false. And yet she knows Aphrodite would never say it if it weren’t true.

She misses a lot of what the goddess says, the building sob in her chest threatening to suffocate her, pulling her attention away, until she hears her phone click, and the call ends.

Still she barely registers it, barely recognizes that she’ll have to call Aphrodite back later to know the rest of what she said.

For awhile- hours, days, she isn’t even sure; maybe it’s only been minutes, but it’s an eternity of hell regardless- she only feels pain and numbness, fighting each other in a battle that only one can win but that neither can lose.

Eventually, though, something else crops up, apart from her anguish and sorrow, from the part of her that wants to sleep and pretend it’s all a nightmare.

It’s anger.

Rage.

A blinding, burning hot fury that tears through everything else and fuses to it.

It burns so hot that her ring reacts, smoldering and smoking as it leaves a mark on her finger, and the reminder that it exists only fuels that fire more.

She takes it off and hurls it across the room, angry tears trailing down her cheeks and soaking into her bed sheets, her breathing growing ragged and painful.

“This isn’t fair!” she shouts at where the ring lays, everything she’s felt since that phone call exploding from her. “You said it twice, Alex! That losing me would be unbearable!”

She throws herself out of bed, launching to her unsteady feet. 

“But I’m still here! I’m still here, and you’re not,” she sobs, the words carving out a heart-shaped hole in her chest. “Did you think it would be any more bearable for me? To know that you died and I wasn’t there to protect you?"

Her legs give out, and she falls to the floor, hard. Her body is screaming for her to let it rest, but its pleas are drowned out by her need to spill her guts.

“It’s not fair.” She says it again and again, until her body can’t take it anymore and her breakfast comes back up instead. Her stomach clenches and twists, emptying everything from it and leaving her to choke on nothing at all. 

She doesn’t even notice when Josh comes in, has no idea how long he’s been home, how much he might have heard. She only knows that he’s suddenly there, holding onto her the way he did so long ago, wiping her hair back and using his shirt to wipe at her eyes, her nose, her mouth.

He says something- asks a question, she thinks. It takes a moment, but she fights past the pounding in her head, lets the anger melt away, to hear what he has to say.

“Ms. A called,” he murmurs, and she threatens to break again, only stopping herself when she sees he’s crying, too. “I’m so sorry.”

It brings a fresh wave of tears, not that they’d ever stopped, and she buries her head in his chest, clinging to him like her life depended on it.

“I wasn’t there for them, Josh. I was laying in bed when I could’ve- when I _should’ve_ protected them.” Her voice is shaking and she knows it’s probably hard to understand, but she can’t stop now. “I promised Aphrodite I would watch them, that I would _be there_ and I wasn’t. And now they’re gone, and I- I didn’t get to say goodbye.”

Josh doesn’t say anything. For once, he doesn’t know what to say, and she’s thankful for it. If he told her not to blame herself, or that everything would be alright, she’s sure she would blow up in his face, and that’s the last thing she wants to put him through.

They sit there for hours, holding onto one another as they mourn.

They don’t feel better for it, but they don’t feel worse, either. 

If anything, it helps MC calm down enough for her mind to clear, little by little, until the truth she’s been trying to fight since Alex left her in the infirmary comes to light.

And it _hurts_.

It hurts now more than ever, makes it feel like the hole in her chest grows three times its size.

It hurts because it’s come too late, and she knows, from the very bottom of her soul, that it’s a truth she’ll carry with her until the day she dies, and long after.

It hurts, because the words are too painful to think, but her tongue is quicker than her mind just then, and she says them anyways, broken just like her, to a world that can only mourn in their stead.

“I loved them.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it! Comments and Kudos appreciated!
> 
> If you'd like to request something, or just talk about lovestruck in general, you can send an ask to my sideblog @official-alex-cyprin or my main @megatraven on tumblr! Any requests I receive for characters I haven't met/played through yet will be saved in my inbox until I have met/played them!


End file.
